Morning Update: Residential school records may lie deep in Vatican’s archives

Good morning,

The Vatican’s archives are vast: They contain 85 kilometres of shelves, an underground vault and millions of pages of documents that span 12 centuries. Researchers of Canadian residential schools say there is a high likelihood they include records and references to the federally funded, church-run system that ripped Indigenous children from their families – and they want those documents released.

That’s one of the key messages that some Indigenous delegates want to deliver when they meet with Pope Francis, a visit now postponed until next year because of concerns about the Omicron variant. Some say they want to see further action from the Catholic Church, beyond apologies.

Métis National Council President Cassidy Caron, who is one of the delegates going to Rome, said she hopes the church will release all the relevant records “in its possession” in order to “repair and renew our relationship and forge a new future for ourselves grounded in truth, transparency and understanding.”

• From The Globe archives: As the Catholic Church reckons with the legacy of residential schools, parishioners are torn between their conscience and church

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How an inhaled COVID-19 vaccine might breathe life into fight against the pandemic

When volunteers show up in the coming weeks to test a pair of COVID-19 vaccines developed at McMaster University, there will be something missing from the standard setup for such a clinical trial: needles.

Instead of a jab in the arm, both vaccines are designed to be inhaled as a fine mist that is deposited into subjects’ lungs. The goal, researchers behind the effort say, is to provide protection via the same route that COVID-19 itself uses to enter the body.

Last week, Dr. Fiona Smaill, who is leading the trial in Hamilton, announced Health Canada gave her and her colleagues the green light to conduct a Phase 1 clinical trial with a small cohort of 30 healthy volunteers between 18 and 65 who have already had their first two doses of an authorized COVID-19 vaccine.

More COVID-19 coverage:

• Canada drops COVID-19 travel rule that rejected South African tests
• British PM declares Omicron emergency, orders immediate COVID-19 booster shots for entire country
• Approving religious exemptions for vaccine rules should fall to government, airlines say
• South Africa’s President isolates after positive test for COVID-19

Michael Sabia was greeted as a game changer as Canada’s deputy finance minister. A year later, he’s made little headway

Michael Sabia spent decades at the helm of major Canadian companies before the Liberal government recruited him to be deputy minister of the federal Department of Finance in late 2020. He took the job, he said at the time, because he wanted to drive an economic growth agenda in Ottawa.

But so far, according to many with direct knowledge of the department’s inner workings, the seasoned CEO has not been able to deliver that agenda, nor has he made headway on reining in public spending.

Insiders say he has struggled in a political system where the Prime Minister is more interested in redistributing the existing economic pie than in generating private-sector growth.

• Campbell Clark: Don’t expect Liberals to change course on economic policy
• David Parkinson: We need fiscal anchors, not just ‘guardrails’

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ALSO ON OUR RADAR

G7 warns of ‘massive consequences’ if Russia attacks Ukraine: Russia should be prepared to face “massive consequences” if President Vladimir Putin attacks Ukraine, G7 leaders said in a statement Sunday. U.S. intelligence assesses that Russia could be planning a multifront offensive on Ukraine as early as January, involving up to 175,000 troops. The Kremlin denies it has plans to invade the Eastern European country.

Is the U.S. ready for its 51st state? Puerto Rico’s bid gains momentum on its streets and in Congress: Washington has long used its sovereignty over Puerto Rico to treat the island very differently from the mainland. While Puerto Ricans hold U.S. citizenship and elect a local government, they cannot vote in presidential elections and have only one, non-voting representative in Congress. Now, momentum is growing to revisit the status question, with one bill before Congress that would grant statehood to Puerto Rico, and a rival piece of legislation that would see Puerto Ricans elect a constitutional convention, which would draft several options to be put to a referendum.

How major institutions want to use debit card, search and phone data to measure the economy: The Bank of Canada is part of a growing cohort of major institutions that are looking to the private sector to provide them with debit-card purchase data, search-engine results and other economic information – a trend that the pandemic has only accelerated. Such data have the potential to help policy makers respond to challenges more quickly than they could by relying on official government statistics, which are often months or years behind because of collection techniques that, in some cases, rely on businesses to fill out forms.

What is Bill 81, Alberta’s newly passed election law? Bill 81, which amends the Western province’s election rules, passed largely along partisan lines – some MLAs with the governing United Conservative Party joined the NDP in voting against it – during the final sitting of the province’s legislative session After the vote, Jason Nixon, the Government House Leader, declared the bill a triumph of democracy. But critics have called it undemocratic – in part because, they say, it tacitly approves of political parties selling memberships in bulk and stifling free speech.

Listen to The Decibel: Putting a price on how nature protects us: What is the price of a wetland? A forest? A river? Is it even possible to assess the value of natural habitats? Governments in Canada are starting to grapple with these questions, especially in the face of climate change. The Globe’s environment reporter Kathryn Blaze Baum dives into the nascent world of ecoassets, or natural assets, and looks at the complex issues around how values are ascribed to natural landscapes and why some people are worried about the consequences of this shift in thinking.

MORNING MARKETS

World stocks await central bank news: World stocks, oil prices and the U.S. dollar firmed on Monday as a generally upbeat mood took hold of world markets ahead of a host of central bank meetings this week that includes the U.S. Federal Reserve. Around 5:30 a.m. ET, Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.13 per cent. Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.87 per cent and 0.15 per cent, respectively. In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei gained 0.71 per cent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.17 per cent. New York futures were higher. The Canadian dollar was trading at 78.39 US cents.

WHAT EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT

Canada’s rural-urban divide is getting deeper, and that hurts all Canadians

“This has long been the formula for electoral success in Canada for decades: Win the seat-rich urban centres, and you win power; add some seats from rural Canada, and you win a majority. So why bother worrying about farming communities in Saskatchewan, fishing communities in Nova Scotia and mining communities in Northern Ontario?” - Donald J. Savoie

B.C. has a drug overdose crisis. At least try to pretend you care

“We have tried shaming drug addicts into stopping. We have tried throwing them in jail. We have tried getting them into rehabilitation programs. Governments and public-health bodies have tried all that. And it’s not working. The problem is worse than ever because the stuff people are buying on the street is more dangerous than ever.” - Gary Mason

TODAY’S EDITORIAL CARTOON

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LIVING BETTER

Essential tips for hosts and guests as holiday entertaining returns

Hosting a gathering, whether big or small, especially in the pandemic, is no easy feat.

Montreal food guide and cook Melissa Simard and Toronto etiquette coach Susy Fossati offer tips on how to navigate the holidays this year, from hosting to being the consummate guest.

The big takeaway for guests? Be sure to never show up empty-handed.

MOMENT IN TIME: Toy sales, 1999

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For more than 100 years, photographers and photo editors working for The Globe and Mail have preserved an extraordinary collection of 20th-century news photography. Every Monday, The Globe will feature one of these images. This month, it’s the joy of toys.

There was a time when toy sales were not TV-dependent. That all changed when Slinky, a coiled-spring toy, had a catchy TV commercial in the 1960s: “It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky, for fun it’s a wonderful toy … Everyone knows it’s Slinky.” Sales skyrocketed as the jingle became an earworm and kid consumerism was born. Think Saturday morning cartoons, when childrens’ attention was riveted by ads for Barbie, Hot Wheels, Mr. Potato Head, Cabbage Patch Dolls, Tickle Me Elmo … the list – and desire for cool toys – goes on. In Jeff Wasserman’s Globe photo above from November, 1999, Kathleen Barry stocks shelves at Eaton’s Toyland in Toronto with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, characters from a cartoon show about anthropomorphic reptilian brothers who use martial arts to fight crime. No more far-fetched than Mr. Potato Head, and always a big seller. Philip King

Subscribers and registered users of globeandmail.com can dig deeper into our News Photo Archive at tgam.ca/newsphotoarchive

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